Today Grace Church welcomes a visiting troupe of Estonian singers and dancers at the 9 o'clock service. Sun. July 3, 2016

From left to right, Lori Graham, CSM Thomas B. Beyard of the Md National Guard, Indrek Kivimäe, a former mayor of Paide, and his wife Tiina, who directs the Paide Girls Choir.

On Sunday, July 3, 2016, the Estonian singing and dancing groups, "Südameke" and "Keerutajad" attended the contemporary service at Grace Lutheran Church in Westminster, MD USA during a cultural exchange in conjunction with the Westminster Paide sister city partnership. #estonia

For the past week, June 27 – July 5, 2016, Westminster has hosted two groups of Estonian folk dancers, "Südameke" and "Keerutajad" from Westminster’s sister city Paide, thanks, in part, to the hard work of CSM Thomas B. Beyard of the Md National Guard, Audrey Cimino and Jaclyn Mathias-Jones of the Community Foundation of Carroll Co., Aime and Jeff Pringle, and Mari Thalman among many others. Not to be overlooked are members of the Maryland National Guard, Sgt. Matthews Akiba, and Spc. Ronald Maddox for great help with logistics

The visitors include 26 young performers and 10 adults for a total of 36. Among the group are friends of mine, Indrek Kivimäe, a former mayor of Paide, and his wife Tiina, who directs the Paide Girls Choir. Both have visited Westminster before. Most notably Indrek visited us in June 2004 and made a presentation at the Md. Municipal League Convention.

In fact Indrek and Tiina helped host my trip to Estonia in Sept. 2004 when I served as the mayor of Westminster and visited Estonia as part of a diplomatic mission for the Md. National Guard and the U.S. State Department.

Today Grace Church welcomes a visiting troupe of Estonian singers and dancers at the 9 o'clock service. Sun. July 3, 2016 DA CE #estonia

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